To:G. V. CHICHERIN[1]

Written:Written on August 3 or 4, 1919Published:First published in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth Ed., Vol. 51.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      page272a.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeChicherin,

Ihave received your note and the radio message. I don’t
think it is worth while taking this seriously and hastening
to reply. Let us rather wait and have the laugh on them.
Today we shall give it to the press asa joke, with a
directive to the editors to ridicule it thoroughly (hinting: are
they not going by the news from Budapest?) and call the
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries all the names
they deserve. We shall talk it over again when I arrive.

Yours,Lenin

[1]Lenin,who was resting at Gorki on August 3 and 4, 1919,
apparently wrote this note in connection with the fact that at the end
of July and beginning of August 1919 strong rumours were current
in the West-European press, and were also spread by the Russian
Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, about an imminent
replacement of the Soviet Government in Russia by a coalition
government (with the participation of Mensheviks and Socialist–
Revolutionaries). =Pravdaon August 6 andIzvestiaon August 8
published articles ridiculing these rumours, which reflected the
imperialists’ hopes for the overthrow of Soviet rule in Russia with
the aid of social traitors, as had occurred in Hungary.